/0_37582_a5099892_L[1].jpg)
Location: 15 Ulitsa Gastello
Subway: Moskovskaya
Closed to the public
Chesmenskiy Palace or Chesma Palace is a neo- Gothic palace that was constructed in the late 18th century during reign of Empress Catherine the Great. It was designed by the court architect Yuri Felten. Chesme Palace was completed in 1777 and named after great naval victory at the battle of Chesme Bay (1770) where Russian fleet defeated Turkish Ottoman fleet. Modest and largely abandoned Chesme Palace was a place for Empress to award soldiers and officers with the Order of Saint George, highest military honour for battle distinction. Among recipients were Suvorov who defeated Ottomans repeatedly as well as his protégé Field Marshal Kutuzov who defeated French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the War of 1812. After World War II it was home to State University of Aerospace Instrumentation (formerly the Leningrad Institute of Aircraft Instrument-making). Today it undergoes reconstruction and is closed to the public.
Story
The area now occupied by the palace was very
swampy and was called the “frog swamp” or “Kikeriki”. As a result of the
Northern War, these lands went to Russia, in the possession of the royal
family. In 1717, the Tsarskoselsky tract was laid to Tsarskoye Selo,
which gave birth to this estate.
18th century
In 1774, on the
7th verst of the Tsarskoselsky tract, Catherine II ordered the
construction of a travel palace in order to relax while traveling to the
summer residence. The construction of the building was entrusted to Yuri
Felten. The construction of the Chesme Castle together with the church
of the same name (the Church of John the Baptist) was completed by 1777.
The Empress often visited the palace and celebrated the patronal feast
of the neighboring church there.
The round hall on the second
floor was used by the Knights of St. George for meetings with the
Empress. Kutuzov, Suvorov and many others were awarded the main military
order of Russia here.
There is a legend according to which, just
when the Empress was passing the 7th verst of the tract, a messenger
came to her, bringing the news of Russia's victory in the Chesme battle.
However, such a development is unlikely. This is indicated by the fact
that for the first 9 years of its existence the palace was called
Kekerikeksinsky from the Finnish name of the area. The Chesme Palace
became in 1780 on the day of the tenth anniversary of Russia's victory
in that battle.
In 1796, Catherine died, and the building passed
into the possession of Paul I. The latter preferred Gatchina to
Tsarskoye Selo and therefore did not use the palace for its intended
purpose. Then the emperor made an attempt to convert the residence into
an almshouse and a hospital. However, the idea did not find application.
In 1799, a special commission found the palace an unsuitable place “for
arranging an infirmary for the Order of Malta in it ...”
The
refusal was argued by the lack of water, although, most likely, this
decision is explained by Paul's dislike for everything Catherine. As a
result, the palace was returned to the jurisdiction of the Court
Department.
19th century
The Chesme church has always been
cold, it was difficult to conduct services in winter. Therefore, on
December 11, 1811, a warm Nativity Church was consecrated on the lower
floor of the eastern tower of the palace. Here from the Imperial
Hermitage "all the belongings of the former field church of Tsar Alexei
Mikhailovich and the field church of Emperor Peter I" were transferred.
Being a travel palace, the residence was mostly empty. During the
reign of Emperor Alexander I, the palace was used only twice, and then
not for its intended purpose - as a summer residence for girls studying
at the Catherine Institute.
In the spring of 1826, Emperor
Nicholas I, who feared uprisings, ordered the body of brother Alexander
to be transported from Tsarskoye Selo to the Nativity Church of the
palace. It was here that on the night of March 5-6, the august corpse
was transferred from the still Taganrog wooden coffin to a new, bronze
one, the lifeless king was covered with a mantle and the sarcophagus was
placed on the mourning chariot, which went to the capital for the
funeral. On June 12-14 of the same year, the body of Elizaveta
Alekseevna was in the residence.
Chesme almshouse
In 1830, the
history of the palace as an imperial travel mansion ended - the building
was transferred from the jurisdiction of the court department to the
possession of the Committee for the Wounded. An almshouse was opened in
the former residence, transferred in 1831 to the Military Department.
Work began on the reconstruction of the palace for the needs of an
almshouse for disabled veterans of the Patriotic War of 1812. Two-storey
outbuildings were attached to the towers. The winter church was moved to
the second floor, to the Round Hall. Previously, the Cavaliers of St.
George met there. On June 23, 1832, in the presence of Emperor Nicholas
I, the church was consecrated.
For the purpose of recreation and
rehabilitation in front of the palace on the site of a wild forest, a
large medical park was laid out. The basis of the green zone was 500
birch trees planted in 1834. The old Gothic stone gates were demolished
and new ones erected in their place. From the side of the Moscow tract,
the park was fenced with a cast-iron fence.
4 years and 4 days
after the consecration of the winter church, Nicholas I solemnly opened
the almshouse. Subsequently, she was named Nikolaevskaya. Initially, the
almshouse was designed for 400 places for privates and 16 for officers.
Later, each outbuilding was built on two floors and the capacity of the
boarding house increased.
On August 18-19, a fire broke out in
the church of the almshouse. The valuables that were there, including
the traveling iconostasis of Peter I and the “canopy over it”, perished.
Modernity
The almshouse was closed only in 1919, after which the
Chesmenka concentration camp was organized in the building. In the
1930s, the palace was transferred to the Road Institute, and in 1941 to
the Leningrad Institute of Aircraft Instrumentation. During the Great
Patriotic War, the palace and the church suffered greatly. In 1946, the
palace was restored (architect A. V. Koryagin), and it housed the
Leningrad Institute of Aerospace Instrumentation. In 2016, another
renovation of the facades was completed, during which the stone plinth,
built from well-preserved, but polluted blocks of the Putilov slab, was
re-hewn. As a result, the surface of the stone